This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
How times change. When Manchester United were pursuing a move for Harry Maguire in the summer, there was always bound to be a casualty from the Red Devils’ centre-back department. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer even remarked that he had “too many” in that position, and in the end, the casualty of their new £80m signing, proved to be Chris Smalling.
The former Fulham ace joined Italian giants AS Roma on a season-long loan and he has quickly established himself as a mainstay of the team. He has played ten times already, and has scored one goal in Serie A too. United’s forgotten man is beginning to revive his career, and he can count himself desperately unlucky to have missed out on Gareth Southgate’s England squad for this latest international break.
The Three Lions boss previously alluded to leaving the 29-year-old out because he was not as good as some of the other centre-backs in bringing the ball out from defence. He said: “We have players like Stones and (Eric) Dier and Maguire who are even better. Chris has got 30 caps, he plays for Manchester United, so I know what he can do. The other guys I want to see and want to look at and that’s an important part of how we want to play, building from there.”
Well if that is Southgate’s main concern over the United loanee, then he should perhaps take a closer look at how the defender has been getting on this season. He has averaged an impressive 52.1 passes per game in Serie A, at a splendid accuracy of 90.4%. Compare this to his measly 39.8 passes per game in the Premier League last season shows how the 29-year-old is becoming increasingly confident of finding himself in possession.
The quality and incisiveness of his passes have gone up too, with Smalling now making 0.3 key passes per game compared to just 0.1 last year. His major improvements means that he can rightfully be annoyed not to have forced his way back into the England set-up.